Let's Make Purple
by I've no clue what I am doing
Summary: (I apologize for this, but people blinked no. Please tell me all the things I've done wrong in excruciating detail.) The classes from BLU and RED must work together to defeat Gray Mann's swarms of robots. Of course, "working together" means something different to them, namely "complain/fight at every chance". I mean, most of them are illiterate. What else could you expect?
1. Preamble (aka boring exposition)

Gray Mann hated snivellers.

Ass-kissers? Fine. Yes-men? Acceptable; he dealt with them on a daily basis. But snivellers?

He was tired of hearing about how many children they had, how many animals they saved from burning buildings, how many awards they won for nose-picking competitions, and how much they wanted to live. The worst part was, they probably _knew_ he didn't care. Nonetheless, they clung to their pathetic lives like limpets, and begging for mercy was the only thing they knew to do anyway.

But somehow, this particular prisoner was worse.

He turned towards the TFC Pyro, a heavyset woman with white hair. "Unmuzzle the prisoner."

She smiled, complying wordlessly. The prisoner in question was the last intelligent person that stood in front of his impending Mann Co. takeover: the legislator.

"You filthy, incontinent old bastard!"

The TFC Demoman and Engineer stifled their giggles. Gray Mann shot them a withering glare.

"Silence," he said. He had no anger left to waste on this after thirty hours of this constant abuse. "If you continue to resist, I'm afraid that you are of no use to me, and I will have to have you killed." He drummed his paper-white, spidery fingers on the interrogation desk. "Is that understood?"

The captive glared as well as his eyes, nearly swollen shut, allowed him. "Fuck you, you desiccated sack of horse manure! I fart in your general direction! I – "

Gray Mann nodded at the TFC Heavy, turned on his heel and strode out of the dimly lit room.

A silenced gunshot.

* * *

In the hall outside, the TFC Scout was chatting in hushed tones with the TFC Spy.

"I still don't know why he's so keen on taking over Mann Co. I mean, sure you might think you should own it, but make a robot army? It just seems excessive!"

"Don't you know that corporations run the world now? Mann Co. is perhaps one of the most if not the most influential companies, globally and locally. Have you seen its annual income reports? It makes sense to expend a little effort for that."

"Whatever. I'm no fiscal genius, but I still think that a company that sells hats and jars of piss – wait, what was that?"

Gray Mann appeared behind them. "The prisoner has been eliminated. Dispose of him." He walked away. "The Heavy will give you your new assignment."

They turned. The burly TFC mercenary in question smiled, revealling a row of blunt, yellowing teeth. "We're going to go hunting for some new meat. You in?"

It was a rhetorical question. Of course they were in.

* * *

Writer's scribblings:

To understand this plot, you must have knowledge of the general storyline. I trust that most of you do. If you haven't read the Team Fortress comics, what are you waiting for? Go read them! They're hilarious!

(Maybe you should also read Team Fortress 2 is Weird. It's less funny, but you may need it to understand some of my in-jokes. ._.)

Since two people blinked no, I have to deliver. If this is unsatisfactory, No-Blinkers, please vent your hatred in the form of either private messages or reviews if you wish to flag it publicly as objectionable.

The rest of this story will be funny, I promise, and the regular chapters will be longer. I am trying to emulate the tone of the comics, which is generally funny but gets serious at times (often with Gray Mann/Administrator stuff). I will (boringly) follow canon. I will continue to steal Monty Python jokes.

Signed,

I've no clue what I am doing


	2. Burgundy

"Yo, Spy!"

Spy ignored the voice that had been grating on his ears for the past hour. It was 4:02:00 am, the first day after the merger. Both teams had elected to remain segregated for safety reasons, sleeping, dining and working in different rooms, only coming together to strategize and fight. The Pyros had been tasked with painting a thick purple stripe down the War Room to designate sides, which they took very seriously. It had taken the Pyros armed with rulers and protractors six hours to paint the stripe, and they were currently decorating the gleaming stripe with colourful chalks and glitter that they had begged Miss Pauling to buy. They got a few strange looks, but no one wanted to oppose two Pyros at the same time.

Spy welcomed the respite this separation allowed, as the very irascible former-BLU Soldier's mouth was impossible to restrain. To get rid of their Soldier, Spy had sent him out to fetch the coordinates of the known Mann Co. store locations in the area so they could plot their next move.

Of course, when one loudmouth falls, another must take its place.

"SPY! C'mon, man, hear me out!"

"Will it keep you quiet?"

"Maybe. It's really important!"

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Scout ignored him. "You know our names, right?"

"Yes. I know our names. Yours is _Nom de Dieu, il ne cesse jamais de parler._ "

"Is that Spanish? Never mind. We can't just call ourselves by our job titles anymore."

"I can't call you what I _want_ to call you, but I'm not complaining about that, am I?"

Scout continued his disrespect of the definition of "dialogue", and continued. "We can't use our old names, because, y'know, there's two teams now." Scout readjusted his headset, and began speaking even faster. "I was thinking about maybe using codenames, you know? Like spies do in spy movies. Like...Winter Strike or Eagle Blade." Scout frowned. "Nah, those suck eggs. How about—"

"No."

"Well, what are we gonna call ourselves, smart guy? Really Rad Killers and their Lesser-Skilled Counterparts?"

"Is there someone else you can bother?"

"Fine. Not codenames. How about nicknames?"

"How about we keep using our RED and BLU names for now and leave whatever you're gibbering on about for later?"

"Personal names?"

"Most definitely not," growled the Spy.

"Superhero names?"

Spy looked up. The Scout looked back at him, his eyes shining and his expression expectant. "Are you daft?"

Scout pouted, looking rather like a child from whom one had stolen ice cream. "Well, RED and BLU don't make sense anymore, dumbass."

"We are going to call ourselves 'RED' and 'BLU', and that is final, you tiny-brained, illegitimate-faced dimwit. Now go away."

For a second, Scout was quiet. As the second dragged on, Spy almost thought he had finally insulted the boy into submission, and a sliver of concern nearly worked its way into his atrophied conscience. He needn't have worried.

"What about our clothes?"

"What about our clothes?"

"Blue and red clothing don't make sense. Purple clothing doesn't look good and none of us can sew."

"That's not a problem..."

"Wait, you can sew? That's the—"

"That is not what I meant, you twit—"

The Engineer interrupted the exchange with a quick chuckle and yanked on Scout's collar. "Hey Spy, mind if I borrow the Scout for a minute?"

"Really? Now, this minute? We have so much left to dis— Yes. Immediately."

Engineer led the hapless Scout away by the collar. "You need me for something, hardhat?"

"Scout, I n-um. You just...keep doing what you're doing. It hasn't killed us yet."

Scout saluted smartly, with the wrong hand and at the wrong height, but whatever.

"I agree with you, son. It's not practical to keep calling us 'RED' and 'BLU' forever. It stirs up all sorts of bad blood."

Scout beamed radiantly, overjoyed that someone finally, finally, finally thought that one of his ideas wasn't the putrid fruit of a rotting brain. So happy, in fact, that he didn't have anything to say for the next hour.

Spy looked over and raised an eyebrow. Engineer smiled. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Spy," he teased.

Spy waved a hand dismissively. "Yes, but you can kill them if you use bleach."

* * *

 **5:02:00**

Meanwhile, the Heavy was trying to accommodate the former-BLU Medic, who seemed overly enthusiastic about 'helping' his former enemy.

"Ve are fighting robots. Ve don't know when ze're coming, und ve don't know vat zey do. Let's look through ze newspapers for clues," suggested the former-BLU Medic.

"Why?"

"Vell, it works in ze movies," he huffed indignantly.

They scanned the front cover. There was a blurry photograph of mounds of dirt with hastily-drawn stickmen armed with swords hacking eagerly at them. Speech bubbles had been superimposed on the image, containing the likes of "Take that, you second hand electric donkey bottom biter" and "I unclog my nose in your direction!" The title, "Were the Hill Wars a Mistake?", was emblazoned solemnly across the scenery.

"Not zis page. Ze bisniss page. Gray Mann is a bisnissman."

The article, "The Stock Market: Is it out to Get Us? Why are there Satanic Images in our Money?" was simply the lyrics to "I Need a Dollar" followed by a solid blue crayon drawing of a pie chart showing "your money" (in red) and "not your money" (in blue).

"Flip to ze sports section. Robots do a lot of running. Zey must be part of some sporting team."

"Doktor, newspaper here is joke."

"Perhaps not. Oh vell. Do you want your own uterus now?"

"Goodbye, Doktor," said the Heavy hastily. "Thank you for the—help."

* * *

 **5:10:23**

"I AM ARRIVING AT THE BASE NOW! REPORTING FOR DUTY!" Soldier saluted with such aggression, his helmet nearly fell off.

Spy looked expectantly at Soldier.

"Well? Where are the coordinates?"

"What coordinates?"

"The coordinates you were supposed to—oh, forget it."

"Oh yes! I have them right here." Soldier made no move to go get them. Spy waited.

"Where. Are. They?"

"Here."

Spy had half a mind to throttle him. Thankfully for Soldier, the other half was preoccupied with obtaining the coordinates.

"Where exactly?"

"In my head! Wait, I just forgot." Soldier frowned. "Never mind! I will fetch the coordinates from my memory." His gaze went blank, and he stood rigidly in place, perfectly still.

"Is there any other way you can make yourself useful?" asked Spy wearily.

Soldier blinked, then narrowed his eyes in thought. The silence was almost palpable, thought Spy. If only he could bottle it for later. If only -

"I will make myself a robot costume!" bellowed Soldier suddenly.

"Please don't," said Spy, with no real hope of convincing him.

"I am going to infiltrate their ranks! They won't know what hit 'em!"

"Please don't," repeated the Spy.

"I will go right now!" Soldier turned to leave, but Spy had finally reached the end of his tether. He grabbed Soldier, twisted his arm in a half-nelson, and flicked out his balisong, pressing it against Soldier's throat. He mentally counted to three, and forcing his voice to remain neutral, said, "Soldier?"

"Yes?"

"I don't give a damn what you do, Soldier."

"Uh-huh."

"Make yourself a goddamn trousseau if you want."

"Okay."

"Just do it far, far away from me."

"Yes."

"And give me the fucking coordinates or I will slit you like a suckling pig."

"Wait. Are you the suckling pig or am I the suckling pig in that situati -"

"Shhhhhhhh," soothed the Spy. "Don't tire yourself. It doesn't matter who's the pig as long as your throat is slit at the end of it."

They remained in that position, Spy's knife still digging into Soldier's neck, for about fifteen minutes.

"Can you let me go now? It's starting to get homoerotic."

* * *

 **6:01:thesenumbersmeannothing**

After breakfast, Miss Pauling arrived to help them strategize for the next day. Well, it was more fending off Scout's advances, forbidding former-BLU Medic from performing more transplants, waking up Demoman for the fifth time, stopping Demo from killing the former-BLU Soldier, and vice versa than actual strategizing.

"YOU BETRAYED ME, YA LOUT!" wailed the Demoman.

"YOU BETRAYED ME FIRST!" hollered the former-BLU Soldier.

"WELL, YOU BETRAYED ME HARDER!"

They adjourned the meeting early.

Spy approached her as she tried in vain to shuffle all the maps and papers they had scribbled on during the course of their disastrous meeting.

"Miss Pauling?"

"Mm-hm?" she responded distractedly, pushing strands of black hair away from her glasses.

"If, perhaps, something were to happen to one of the Soldiers..."

"No, Spy, we've been over this," murmured Pauling. "We need their firepower."

"Come now," coaxed the Spy. "If you get rid of that silly friendly fire regulation, I could take care of Scout for you..."

Miss Pauling smiled. "He's just annoying, Spy, and I don't need other people to to do my work for me. Also, Scout's too good of a distraction."

"That is because he runs straight for the strongest robots."

"Yeah. It's really good for the rest of you."

"I don't see why I can't still...discipline...them occasionally."

"Come on, Spy. You haven't killed any of them yet. You can take a couple more years."

"Years?" murmured the Spy, exhaling slowly. "Mon Dieu."

"Just focus on keeping everyone alive for now. You can do it, Spy. I know you can."

"The respawn will do that quite nicely, thank you very much."

"Not forever, Spy. The robots won't stop coming. Unless we go to the source and wipe them out from there, we'll get overwhelmed eventually. The source is Gray Mann's factories, and there—"

"There is no respawn there," finished Spy dryly. "I know that."

They reflected silently on that for a while.

"Well, back to work."

Spy turned to leave. Before he did, though, he looked back at Miss Pauling.

"What was the drunkard going on about earlier?"

"Pardon?"

"The Demoman and the Soldier. 'You betrayed me'. What is that supposed to mean?"

"I—I don't know what you're talking about."

Spy paused in the middle of lighting a cigarette. "Avoiding the question?"

"Whatever! Demo's drunk, Soldier's crazy, let's just leave it at that."

Spy raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He would find out one way or another.

Spy ambled off to his smoking room, where he, as expected, went to smoke. But not as expected was his left turn behind the bookcases where he had prepared a soundproofed profanity room, where he spent two cathartic hours yelling unspeakable obscenities at the skylight.

* * *

Writer's scribblings:

If there is confusion:

The default is RED. If not distinguished with "former-BLU", they're former REDs.

Unfortunately, the canon doesn't have names for some of them, and I won't give them any just in case they get named in the future. I know, this is fan fiction, yada yada yada, but I like to keep track of one "master continuum", if you will; all the fan works just get me so muddled about when things are happening where and who's copulating with what.

I can imagine something like Ron fighting Darth Vader, though. That's pretty cool.

(So far, I've found many things that you can twist and blow out of proportion while still keeping it canon. I love the TF2 universe. And the fanbase is so forgiving, excepting maybe most of the gaming community when they released the End of the Line update. GO SHOVE YOUR BONUS DUCKS UP YOUR ASS, VALVE.)

I will continue to apologize for my writing. I apologize also for apologizing. I know it's not enough to undo the damage.


	3. Violet

They approached the building. The lights were dimmed, and the doors were all sealed and barred. Not that they could tell from the outside. The building was just the sort of building that looked like it would have sealed and barred doors. Three round cylinders that would have gleamed under the sun stood next to a tower that made the mercenaries wonder if possibly Gray Mann was compensating for something.

The tension was thick enough to saw at with plastic safety scissors, but not quite so thick that it needed to be cut with a dull steak knife. The two teams were standing apart at a wary distance, looking at their target. So vulnerable. So deceptively vulnerable.

"Are you sure this is it?" former-BLU Scout whispered.  
"Of course I'm sure!" bellow-hollered the former-BLU Soldier.  
"Be _quiet_!" hissed the former-BLU Spy.  
"What?!" screeched Soldier.  
Former-BLU Demoman smacked him upside the head.

"We attack at dawn," announced the former-RED Scout in an attempt to sound foreboding.  
"No, we attack in 30 minutes. We went over this," said the former-RED Engineer.  
"Dude! I was—never mind."  
"No one wants to wait until dawn," continued the Engineer. "That's a full eight hours from now."  
"I—"  
"Besides, they'd all be up at dawn, and then they'd tear us a structurally superfluous behind."  
"I get it!"  
"All right. Just no more dawn nonsense."  
The Scout growled and kicked at the ground.

"Soldier, will you do the honours?"  
The former BLU Soldier grinned and took out a rocket launcher that looked like it was made by either Demoman or someone whose wife left him at the same time his wits did. If this rocket launcher were held by any other person, it would have blown them up fifty times over before hitting anything useful. But it suited Soldier just fine.  
He aimed the artless abomination that was his armament and fired.

* * *

Inside the building, a convoy of sheepish yet still deadly robots clustered around three people wearing cardboard boxes on their heads. They (the people, that is) were completely, utterly, entirely, and absolutely trapped.  
"Humans!" declaimed the robotic (what else would it be?) voice of the Mecha-Engineer.  
"Are you certain? They look like robots to us," the robot Demomen inquired.  
"Yes, they are human, you dimwits," said Gray Mann in disgust. "When I made you—"  
"ALL HAIL THE MAKER!"  
"Yes, hail. When I made you, I gave you artificial _intelligence_. Whatever happened to that?"  
Silence.  
"Well, go get them!"  
"HUMANS."  
"Yeah, we get it. There is no need to rub it in," grumbled the other assorted robots.  
"Solly! We're surrounded!" hissed Miss Pauling. "Did you activate the distress signal yet?"  
"What signal?"  
"Soldier!"  
"I did," Heavy interjected swiftly. "Do not worry, Miss Pauling."  
An explosion shook the building.  
Then another.  
Then a third in quick succession.  
The robots looked around for whoever accidentally dropped a grenade or let off a rocket. Part of the wall fell in.  
"I AM YELLING AT THE TOP OF MY LUUUUNGS!" screamed the former-BLU Soldier, careening through the air via the hole in the wall.  
"You imbecilic f—" Gray Mann began to say.  
At that moment, the rest of the mercenaries barreled in.

* * *

 _And now for something completely different...  
_ It stood in a cold storage room located in the bowels of the Gray Gravel Co. building next to thousands of its brethren. It used the term loosely. They felt neither affection for each other nor shared any close genetic relations, nor were they male in a biological sense. They shared a bloodless, brainless prototype, a common alloy, and not much else. But the robot had grown used to thinking of itself in human terms, as they were the only ones given to them.

They were all capable of independent thought, but it was very, very limited. Enough memory for them to recognize certain humans, enough foresight to predict when the humans would attack, and enough presence of mind to know that it had better obey the Maker. Or else.  
It searched its circuits for something concerning its origins, the duality of good and evil, or life, the universe, and everything, something that it could use to express its attitude towards a state of conscious sentience and its endless intricacies, but all it had were voice lines of its corresponding human.

It was _not_ happy.

It was a robot. It didn't want to speak smelly human words and stupid human feelings. It wanted something for _robots_. Humans were still going on about Turing tests and ethics of creating virtual intelligences and nonsense like that. It _knew_ it was intelligent, and what was done was done. That was all.

A great rumbling filled the room, cutting short the hibernating robot's thoughts. Faint yells and explosions could be heard through the ceiling. An emergency switch, one that was only to be thrown in cases of—you guessed it—emergencies, was—you guessed it again—thrown.

Its single glowing blue eye flicked open, and so did all its brethren.  
 _Intruders._

* * *

The chaotic battle inside the main room was somehow not entirely in favour of the robots, who had numbers, inability to disobey orders, and lack of nociception on their side. However, the mercenaries did have the element of surprise, functioning amygdalae, and sheer brute-force determination on their side.  
Gray Mann had retreated to his headquarters via a secret passage, and watched the proceedings from six different angles on his many security monitors. Coward.

Former-RED Engineer was hammering furiously at the Level 3 Sentry and Dispenser he had set up outside, and former-RED Pyro stood next to him, melting any robot that came close. Their plan was to draw the robots through the chokepoint they had created, intercept Heavy, Pauling, and Soldier, and leave.  
The former RED Scout stood wide-eyed, staring at the legion of robots flooding out of the room.  
"Scout! Move your—"  
Pyro doused the supposed Scout in a spray of fire. The disguise flickered, and the robot crumpled in the crackling flames that fed off the money from which for some reason the robot drew its power.  
"Why are the Scouts always spies?!"

"Hey! Fellow American!" shouted the former BLU Soldier at his former RED counterpart. He chucked a spare rocket launcher at the RED's head, and the RED Soldier caught it and promptly blasted his way out of the corner. Former RED Medic, holding Sasha gingerly, waved her at Heavy. Heavy's eyes widened, and he barreled through the swarm of robots to get to her. Miss Pauling simply did her best to dodge the robots, and she sort of wished her pistol was as impressive-looking as Soldier's rocket launcher or Heavy's minigun, but then again, she thought as she put several robots down inhumanely, it served her well enough.

Now all they had to do was try to fight off, oh, about a thousand robots, and they'd be home free.

* * *

The former RED Sniper crouched behind a large rock, silently bemoaning the fact that he had no better perch than a large rock. If the large rock had psionic powers, it might have been offended that Sniper considered it inadequate. As it was, it stood there, imposing and non-sentient, just as a large rock should. He raised his rifle and picked a robot that was about to stab one of the Medics. His walkie-talkie burbled a bit and he nearly fell over as Soldier's voice came through. Soldier's voice was screaming something along the lines of "GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE YOU SLIME-SUCKING MAGGOT!" but Sniper's ears were ringing from the first syllable and he was unable to fully appreciate the entirety of the message, but he was certain he understood the crux of the matter. He moved slightly closer to the throng of tussling automata and assassins, and promptly fell victim to an attempt on his life by a giant cloud of dust. He coughed rather crossly and tried to brush the dust out of his eyes.

An unmistakable sound of a Spy decloaking sounded next to his ear. He whipped around, pulling out his kukri, ready to strike—

The robot Spy in front of him sparked, shuddered mightily and powered down. It pitched forward, nearly crushing the Sniper, who leapt out of the way at the last moment. A sapper was affixed to its back. The Spy who put it there was nowhere to be seen.  
"Bloody spooks," muttered the Sniper. He was tempted to move back behind the rock, for whom he had developed a modicum of affection considering his other options, but at that moment, a robot Demoman decided to explode and send shrapnel in every which way.  
And of course, some embedded their white-hot little metal selves into Sniper's sides and face.

Well damn it all.

He spotted RED Medic—no, he was too far away, charging his Uber on a Heavy, he couldn't tell which—but the BLU Medic was nearby.  
With a sinking heart, he realized the Medic from BLU would have to do. BLU Medic had gone full Battle Medic, waving an Ubersaw with reckless abandon, cackling maniacally (which meant normally for a Medic). For a split second, Sniper wondered what could possibly go on inside a Medic's baffling mind. (If he were to look inside the BLU Medic's mind at that particular moment, he would have seen " _oh yes scream for me_ YES", but he did not look inside Medic's mind at that particular moment and it was a good thing.)  
"Oi! A little help?"  
The BLU Medic glanced at him, rolled his eyes in annoyance, and beheaded a robot Heavy while pulling out his Quick-Fix. He shot a couple rounds at Sniper, who winced as the needles pierced his skin and emptied their strange contents into his flesh. Sniper bit back a curse as the wounds closed abruptly.  
"Thanks, mate."  
The BLU Medic nodded curtly in response, deftly sidestepped a robot Demoman, and ran it through with its own Eyelander.

* * *

Another robot Demoman spluttered to a halt, a sapper sticking out of its back. In its death throes, it swung its Eyelander mightily. A column of air in the shape of a very irate Spy shivered in and out of existence, and spurt of blood materialized.  
"Where's Miss Pauling?" the RED Scout shouted at no one in particular.  
"" replied no one in particular.  
"I'm over here!" hollered Miss Pauling, who, having salvaged a grenade launcher from one of the fallen robot Demomen, was living out her basest fantasies. A robot Heavy aimed a Deflector at her.  
Before Scout could live out _his_ fantasies and swoop in to save her, she loaded the grenade launcher and lobbed a couple of pills at the neighbouring robots, reducing them to scrap metal and blinding the robot Heavy, which was felled by another sapper.  
She grinned. She was about to reload when she felt a cold metal blade dig itself into her back.  
"Miss Pauling!"

* * *

The remaining robots began retreating into the room, and the former BLU mercenaries took the opportunity to regroup. Former BLU Soldier took it upon himself to take a head count, but none of the voices in his head could count except for Benjamin Franklin, who was being a cheeky fellow and giving him bad instructions.

 _"I say, dear chap, counting is as easy as 1, 2, C. All you must do is tick them off on your fingers as you go along. Since you have ten fingers (if you consider your thumbs fingers) and there are only nine classes, that's more than enough fingers."_  
 _"BUT THERE ARE TWO OF EACH! EXCEPT FOR MISS PAULING, THERE IS ONLY ONE OF HER! THAT MAKES AT LEAST TWENTY!"_  
 _"...well, fuck you."_  
"SHUT IT!" bellowed Soldier.  
"Er, what?" asked the former BLU Sniper.

Before Soldier could explain, milling masses of machines poured out of the side of the building anew. These weren't the battered robots that they had been fighting earlier. These were shiny, chrome-plated supercalifragilisticexpialidocious robots.  
"HOLY SHIT! REINFORCEMENTS? THEY HAVE _REINFORCEMENTS?!_ " shrieked the former BLU Scout.  
"Gray Mann is smarter than his brothers are, remember?" the former BLU Engineer shouted in reply.  
"YEAH, BUT HIS ROBOTS RUN ON MONEY! WHAT KIND OF IDIOT MAKES ROBOTS THAT RUN ON MONEY?!"  
"All right!" bellowed the former BLU Engineer. "Everyone, grab onto Soldier and let's rocket jump the hell out of here!"  
"He can't support all our weight!"  
"Well, then grab a Sollybot's rocket launcher and let's rocket jump the hell out of here!"  
No one was inclined to disagree with him.

* * *

The RED mercenaries had a small problem in the form of Miss Pauling, who was slightly dead-ish. Scout was struggling with her slightly dead-ish body, trying to get her to their Medic.

"All right!" the Medic in question announced. "Zose who can stand, line up in ze order of most to least injured! And those who cannot stand, lie vere you are and somvone point zem out to me!"

The Scout skidded to a halt in front of the Medic, his eyes wild. He set Miss Pauling gently on the ground and forced himself to look at her. Her face was pale and she was barely breathing.  
"Oh God..." he said, horrified. "Miss Pauling, just hold on...please don't die, I haven't even told you I—"  
The former RED Medic trained a Medi Gun on her, and in fifteen sections, the knife wound in her back had disappeared.  
"Next," he barked.  
"Yes, Scout? What were you saying?" she asked softly.  
The Scout blushed red enough to match his shirt, muttered half-formed excuses and bolted off.  
"That's the last time I go on a reconnaissance mission with Soldier," murmured Miss Pauling.

* * *

Gray Mann sighed, steepling his fingers in front of his face. His robots had driven off the mercenaries, despite his orders to either kill them, or if they had to be alive, capture them. He would have to tinker with their programming later, improve their reasoning and comprehension skills. The only reason he didn't give them fully human sapience was that he didn't want a mutiny, but he was starting to think that he had to.  
He turned to one of the two robots of the first wave that weren't damaged in the attack.  
"Bring in the prisoner."  
God, he loved saying that.  
The robots saluted, creaked off, and returned, bearing an unarmed and thoroughly incensed formerly RED (and currently red-in-the-face-with-anger) Soldier.  
"YOU SON OF A BITCH! LET ME GO THIS INSTANT!"  
"No."  
"CURSES! DOES YOUR EVIL KNOW ANY BOUNDS?!"  
"Careful, Soldier, you'll give yourself vocal nodules."  
"WHY DID YOU CAPTURE ME?"  
"Are you expecting me to tell you everything? Do you take me for one of my robots?"  
The Soldier said nothing in response, which was an incredibly shocking occurrence in itself, but he was simply trying to come up with an appropriate insult.  
"Guardbots, knock him out so I can gloat about our plans safely."  
They promptly coldcocked the Soldier in the head with his own rocket launcher.  
"Very good." Gray Mann strode to the front of the room and began to monologue. "I've been waiting for an opportunity to explain myself to an fresh audience for a long time."  
Unconscious Soldier didn't reply.  
"Perhaps you want to ask me why I chose robots. Well, I find them easier to deal with than human henchmen, who may be dumb as bags of rocks and still demand paychecks. The psychological impact is also a force to be reckoned with. Uncanny valley and all that..."  
The nearest robot looked at his neighbour, and nodded.  
"And why did I program death screams? Why, for added realism, and that psychological effect. I modeled them after you, after all. I had considered using _Daisy Bell_ instead, but I went with the death screams."  
The robot shifted awkwardly in place, creaking slightly.  
"Why do they run on money? Well, that's a story for another time."  
The robot mimed a cough and said, "Maker, why did we capture the screaming one that hates maggots?"  
"I was getting to that! Did I create you to ask stupid questions?"  
The robot decided not to answer.  
"Your replacement," he informed to unconscious Soldier, "has the enhanced versions of the circuits of both my Spybots and Soldierbots. That means it'll act just like you, but will be infinitely more cunning. Your friends will be the instrument to their own downfall."  
Gray Mann sighed again. He admitted to himself that he was perhaps too prone to indulgence: giving needless self-aggrandizing exposition, programming "Hail" circuits into his robots, behaving almost like those execrable villains of comic books...He was not going to stoop to the lowest level of villainy and end his speech by claiming that nobody could stop him and laughing evilly.  
Instead, he called for Olivia so she could do it.

* * *

Writer's scribblings:  
I am back from underneath my rock. It took longer than expected to crawl out from under there. I apologize.  
I am aware that violet is not a shade of purple, and that this chapter is less humour-driven than normal. Please do not harm me.  
Till the next time,  
A contrite Clue


End file.
